KAFFIR CHARACTERISTICS--THE CRUELTIES OF WAR--NO REAL SYMPATHY
BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE--KAFFIR CRUELTIES--NIGHT ATTACK ON A
KAFFIR VILLAGE--WOUNDED PRISONER--“DOCTOR” DIX--KAFFIRS BECOME
RARE--CAPTURE OF NOZIAH, SANDILLI’S SISTER--SUSPICIOUS DEATH OF
HER ATTENDANT--SERGEANT HERRIDGE.
It was during this period, while all elements of warfare at the
Cape were dying of exhaustion, that I had time to observe many
characteristics of the Kaffir race.
One remarkable trait in their character is their sterling singleness
of purpose in whatever they undertake. Whatever task a Kaffir has in
hand, he does it thoroughly--no hesitation, no swerving from the object
proposed; there is a childlike belief in the possible attainment of
whatever they seek, which seems incredible to those who know the folly
of the searcher.
Two small pieces of stick joined together by a strip of leather, and
blessed by a witch-doctor, would enable him to face death, in any
shape, undismayed, secure in the thought that he possesses a talisman
which renders him invulnerable.
A Kaffir will chase a whim, a freak, or a fancy as persistently and
as eagerly as a schoolboy will chase a butterfly until he sinks from
exhaustion.
I have seen a native woman seated on the ground, mirroring herself in
a bit of broken glass, and vainly trying to reduce her crisp woolly
locks into some faint semblance of an Englishwoman’s flowing hair.
Thus she would comb and comb, in the useless effort to make herself as
artificial as the life she saw reflected there.
Reaction with them is naturally as intense as the previous excitement.
A Kaffir who has been risking his life so recklessly to defend his
home, will, when defeated, become wholly heedless of what remains--wife
and children, goods and chattels, may perish before he will awake from
his prostration and stretch out a finger to save them.
I have seen a native deserter condemned to be hanged, point to the men
who were tying the noose on the branch of a tree, and explain by signs
that the knot was too long for him to freely swing between the branch
and the ground.
I have seen another, wounded in the leg, and unable to walk to the
place of execution, when placed on my pony to carry him there, urge on
the animal to the spot, and when the knot had been placed round his
neck, give the “click” that sent the pony on and left him swinging
there.
A Kaffir woman, driven from her hut, refuses to be burdened with her
child on the march, and if placed by force in her arms, will drop the
little thing on the first favourable occasion on the roadside to die.
Men and women, huddled together as prisoners after an engagement,
appear utterly indifferent to one another’s sufferings; the husband
will not share his rations with his wife (unless ordered to do so), nor
will she share hers with him.
A Kaffir child will ask you for the beads you have promised him for
bringing you to the hut in which you are going to shoot his own father.
I have heard and seen many horrible things, but this I must say, that
the most atrocious villains, and the most lovable beings on the face of
God’s earth, are to be found among the white men. A more kind-hearted
soul than Sergeant Shelley could never be conceived; and another man
in my corps used to carry about, concealed under his jacket, a broken
reaping-hook, to cut the throats of the women and children we had taken
prisoners on our night expeditions.
As another proof of what men may become in time of warfare, Dix one
morning came to inform me that I could not have my usual bath in the
small copper vat in which I had been accustomed to take my matutinal
tubbing. Upon further inquiries I found that it had been used for a
purpose which I will attempt to describe.
Doctor A---- of the 60th had asked my men to procure him a few native
skulls of both sexes. This was a task easily accomplished. One morning
they brought back to camp about two dozen heads of various ages. As
these were not supposed to be in a presentable state for the doctor’s
acceptance, the next night they turned my vat into a caldron for
the removal of superfluous flesh. And there these men sat, gravely
smoking their pipes during the live-long night, and stirring round and
round the heads in that seething boiler, as though they were cooking
black-apple dumplings.
One morning two Kaffir boys, that had been found by the men marauding
on the outskirts of our camp, were brought to me, and by the offer I
made of blankets and beads, were led to promise they would guide us
to where the rest of the tribe lay concealed in a deep glen between
the stony ridges that ribbed off from the Water-kloof heights. In
furtherance of this object I started with a small detachment of forty
men under Lieutenant Charlton. The summit of the kloof was wrapped in
heavy clouds, and in passing through the hoary woods which fringed
the foot of the hill, grave doubts came over me as to whether I was
justified (now that the war was ebbing to a close, and had taken a
decided turn in our favour) in thus tempting children to betray their
parents; and as these boys were cautiously feeling their way to the
front, like mute slot-hounds picking up an uncertain trail, it appeared
to me that we were more like revengeful pursuers hunting down poor
fugitive slaves, than man going to meet man and fight out our disputed
rights in fair play. God’s will be done! but the task assigned to the
white man is often a difficult one.
At one time he appears as a sort of legal hangman in the name of
Nature’s undefined laws; at another, simply a murderer; at a third
time, as I hardly know which of the two. Nevertheless, one conviction
always comes back with a desolating pertinacity amidst all my doubts,
and that is--we never can be equals, in peace or in war; _one_ of the
two must give way; and as neither will do so while life lasts, Death
can be the only arbitrator to settle the dispute.
Many and many a time have I held out the hand of good-fellowship to
the negro, but have never felt him clasp mine with the same heartfelt
return. It has either been with a diffident pressure, as though
something still concealed remained between us, or with a subtle
slippery clasp, which gave one the idea of a snake wriggling in the
hand, seeking when and where to bite.
Thus communing with myself, I followed hesitatingly the heels of the
Kaffir children; when they suddenly stopped, and pointing to some
faint glimmering lights that appeared, in the murky atmosphere of the
valley, to be far off, but in reality were close at hand, asked for
the blankets I had promised, for there stood the huts in which their
parents slept whom they had brought me to shoot! I halted the men,
and ordered them to lie down: and there we lay, stretched out on the
ground, within sixty yards of the village, watching the Kaffirs come
out to tend their fires, and endeavour to conceal the glare, as though
afraid of attracting attention, then cautiously looking round, retire
to rest again inside their little branch-covered huts.
While thus lying and watching to our front, some cautious footsteps
from the rear were heard approaching, and several Kaffirs, finding
out their mistake too late to fall back, threaded their way through
our ranks as though the men were but so many logs of wood instead of
the deadly foes they knew us to be. The last of these stragglers was
leading a horse which obliged him to stop, as the brute stood snorting
over one of the men--it refused to pass by. At length it made a plunge
forward, and its heels coming disagreeably close to the man’s head as
it landed on the other side, he rose, with a good hearty oath. The
Kaffir, however, proceeded stolidly on his way.
These Kaffirs stopped at the huts and spoke to the people around
them, but evidently did not communicate the knowledge of our presence
to their friends, for they retired again quietly to rest. My horse,
Charlie--a good, sensible animal as ever a man bestrode (it was the
charger that General Cathcart had given me)--having winded the horse
the Kaffir had lately led through our ranks, threw off the hood his
head was usually covered with to prevent his attention being drawn to
other cattle while we were lying in wait around villages, and began to
neigh. Out swarmed the Kaffirs like bees aroused harshly from their
hives. They evidently knew the loud neighing of my entire horse did
not proceed from one of their small Kaffir ponies, who, in their turn,
were now replying to Charlie. Before a minute had passed, our men had
opened fire, and the Kaffirs in return were hurling back to us their
assegais. This did not last long. With a loud cheer the huts were
charged. Soon all was over; and after pulling out the dead and the
wounded, we set fire to the village.
During the fight, a little Kaffir boy, who had been curled up in a
_kaross_, had received a bullet in the sole of his foot, which, passing
up the leg, had smashed several inches of the bone. As he was being
rolled over and over whilst the men were dragging the _kaross_ from
under him, he explained to me, by signs, his impossibility to rise. He
stretched out his little bronzed fingers towards me; and his childish,
olive face, lit up by the glare of the fire from the burning hut,
looked to me like the illuminated countenance of the infant St John
which one often sees in medieval pictures, and I could not help taking
up the little fellow in my arms and giving him a hearty kiss. I could
not leave him in his helpless condition; yet how were we to get him
back to the camp? His leg was quite smashed. The man whom I tipped
with a sovereign to carry him, found it dangling about in the most
sickening manner, and at last gave up the job. The only chance left was
to have an amputation performed. To this the child submitted without
a murmur; and Dix, my cook, took the limb off at the knee in a manner
that would have astonished a London surgeon. This was not the first
“case” on which Dix had tried his “’prentice hand;” for some time past
his vocation had been that of head surgeon and barber in general to the
corps.
The little patient arrived eventually at the camp all right; and it
may perhaps interest my readers to hear that a wooden leg was made for
him, on which he used to stump off extraordinary Kaffir reels that
might have given a new idea to some of those bonnie Scotchmen who
indulge in the Highland fling. But the most profitable feat for the
little performer was the following:--In a small stream that flowed
some two hundred yards in front of Blakeway’s Farm, the men had made
a large pond for bathing, by sinking the bed of the river. Over it a
small platform was erected from which one might take a plunge. To this
spot the little Kaffir was led whenever visitors arrived at the camp
(and this often occurred, now that the war was drawing to a close).
There, one end of a string being tied to his wooden leg, and the other
fastened to a fishing-rod, he popped into the water like a large frog,
and went down to the bottom, while up rose his leg like a float. Then
began the exciting struggle of landing this queer fish; and when this
was achieved, amid roars of laughter, a shower of coppers was sure to
make up for his ducking.
The country around Fort Beaufort had now become so free from Kaffirs,
that the men would often, after roll-call, of an evening go in twos
and threes, without their firelocks, into the town, and return again
before next morning’s _réveillé_, laden with calibashes filled with
Cape-smoke. I may mention that this is the name of an intoxicating
liquor made from the prickly pear or Cape cactus.
To prevent these irregular proceedings, Sergeant Herridge used to
patrol the road with a party of men; and one evening he brought back an
old woman, two middle-aged ones, and a young girl, whom he had found
in a kloof adjoining the before-mentioned road. The girl was called
“Noziah.” We soon found out that she was no less important a personage
than the sister of the Kaffir chief Sandilli, who, with “Macomo,” was
the greatest opponent to British power at the Cape. The old lady was
the principal attendant, the two others the “lady-helps,” of the party.
The former was a most communicative personage. After relating the
splendour of the young damsel’s origin, and the responsibilities under
which she herself laboured, as being the duenna to whose care Sandilli
had confided so incomparable a treasure, she asked to be allowed to
go on her way, and report progress to her mighty chief. The ancient
dame was quite a character, and I felt interested on her behalf; and
explained, through Johnny Fingo, that she was at perfect liberty to go
where she liked--adding that, during her absence, I would look after
the welfare of her charge, and that Sandilli might expect to see his
sister return as she had been confided to my care.
The old lady, after expressing, by profound salutations, her gratitude
to me, was on the point of departing, when Sergeant Herridge remarked
that she wore a wonderful necklace of lions’ and leopards’ teeth strung
together, and that he would like to have it. On this being explained
to the old woman, she stoutly refused to part with it, saying it was
a charmed token, an heirloom in her family, and had belonged formerly
to a great witch-doctor, of whom she was the lineal descendant. There,
for the moment, ended the matter, and shortly afterwards she started on
her journey alone. Sergeant Herridge was observed to follow her; and
just after she had disappeared behind the brow of the hill that rose
over Blakeway’s Farm towards the Water-kloof, a shot was heard, and the
sergeant came back with his leather jacket spattered with blood.
The next day the old woman’s body was found; and as the men believed
that she had been murdered by Herridge, he was in consequence shunned;
for however brutally cruel many of them were, killing without mercy all
that came in their way when engaged in fight, young as well as old,
even braining little children--yet this was done against the supposed
deadly enemies of their race, and not in cold blood for the sake of
plunder.
It must not even be supposed that men could be brought into this
savage state of mind without many harrowing causes of anger. I have
not related the many proofs we had had of the fiendish ferocity of our
foes. We had all seen the victims, or the remains, of their abominable
tortures: women disembowelled, and their unborn progeny laid before
them; men mutilated, and their amputated members placed in derision
to adorn their yet living bodies, their wounds exposed to flies and
maggots, and fated to feel death thus crawling loathsomely over them.
All this had exasperated the men into frenzy. We all knew what awaited
us if we fell into their power. It is true that people at home, who
descant quietly on the rights of man, may have some difficulty in
realising the feelings of the men.
As this supposed case of murder was not reported to me for several
days, and when at last I inspected the place where the deed was said
to have been committed, the old woman’s body had been so much eaten
up by jackals, &c., as to be no longer recognisable as to which sex it
belonged, I left the matter alone. Herridge in the meantime stoutly
denied to all that he had committed the crime. About a month afterwards
he expressed a wish to leave the corps and rejoin the police. Knowing
his, to say the least of it, uncomfortable position, I allowed him to
do so, giving him letters stating the services he had rendered during
the war, to facilitate his readmission into the police force, from
whence he had in reality deserted.
This is one instance of the many _laches_ which occurred in my corps,
and which, as the authorities took no positive notice of it, I was only
too glad to pretend to ignore.
On my return to England in the following spring, I was asked, on
passing through Graham’s Town, to go and visit a man then lying in
the hospital there, and who had formerly belonged to my corps. I
accordingly went, and found the man to be Sergeant Herridge. I was
shocked to see the emaciated state to which his powerful frame had been
reduced, and the haggard, shifting look of his once fearless eye. His
right hand and arm had withered to the bone; and as he held it propped
up with the other before me, he said, “That did it, sir; the Almighty
has blasted it; the old woman is revenged. I knew by the look she gave
me when dying that all was not settled between us; but she has never
left gnawing at that arm since, and now she is sucking away at my
brains. Tell me, sir, will she leave me alone when I am dead?”
Poor Herridge! His deed was a cruel one, and he suffered cruelly
for it. Doctor B---- of the 12th, who attended him, remarked that
he had never seen a case in which the power of the mind so visibly
affected the body. When first brought under his charge, the man merely
complained of rheumatism in the arm, and insisted on the fact that it
was drying it up; and in the course of two months, during which he was
continually staring at it, it had in effect withered to the bone.